THE National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has asked prospective corps members to pay N4,000 each before they can print their call-up letters online.
The NYSC announced this in an advertorial published by some national dailies during the week.
For the Nigerian youths, especially those looking forward to the compulsory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme, it is yet another chain in the vicious cycle.
Parents painfully bear the cost of primary and secondary education. At the tertiary stage, the youth start to share in the responsibilities, write qualification examinations and upon satisfactory performance, chase admission into institutions of choice with eagerness of a pool staker-to be or not.
While on campus, unforeseen circumstances like industrial strikes, rather than the course of study, determine year of graduation.
Graduates who sing ‘Hurrah’ on convocation grounds now have another hurdle staring them in the face. It’s now youth service with tears, sorry, cash.
The public announcement signed by the management of NYSC and published in some of the nation’s newspapers as advertorials, indicated that starting from the next batch of those who will be observing the scheme (the entire NYSC programme is done in batches three of “A”, “B” and “C”), the option of N4000 will be made available for prospective youth corp members to have their call-up letters accessible and printable online as against the traditional system whereby the letters could only be obtained by the young men and women in their respective schools.
‘’All graduates from Nigerian Universities, Polytechnics/Monotechnics and those affiliated to them (whether full time or part-time) are expected to carry out their biometric-enabled online registration using their Matriculation Numbers and JAMB Registration Numbers. Also, those for Revalidation (i.e prospective corps members who were mobilized earlier but for one reason or the other could not report for the orientation course) must equally register online’’
It added: ‘Those who wish to get their call-up by SMS/email and subsequently print their call-up letters online are to pay the sum of Four thousand naira using any bank’s Automated Teller Machine ATM cards or the PIN Vending option from any bank in Nigeria. The feature allows them to print and reprint their call-up letters online in case of loss of call-up letters and also facilitates accelerated camp processing at orientation camp.”
“However, those who wish to collect their call-up letters from their institution need not pay the Four Thousand naira N4,000 after the online registration’’
The idea of this move, according to the management of NYSC, is that all prospective ‘corpers,’ as youths observing the scheme are often called, instead of going to their respective schools to obtain their mandatory call-up letters, can achieve the same feat in the ‘comfort’ of their homes by paying the sum of N4,000.
Those who decide to choose this path, according to the management of NYSC, will be able to enjoy certain benefits and privileges including the ability to possess multiple call-up letters (apparently in case of loss or damage of one). Perhaps most importantly, the move, the management insisted, will offer the opportunity for corpers to enjoy “accelerated camp orientation processing” at their various orientation camps.
Parts of the advert announcing this latest trend read: “All prospective corps members are to register online. Those who wish to get their call-up numbers by SMS/email and subsequently print their call-up letters online are to pay the sum of N4000 using any bank’s ATM cards or the PIN vending option from any bank in Nigeria. The feature allows them to print and re-print their call-up letters and also facilitate accelerated camp processing at the orientation camp.”
Apparently having the knowledge that not everyone would be in support of the new ‘idea’, especially given the fact that the next NYSC programme is just a few weeks away, the management of the scheme has also offered prospective corps members concerned the option of obtaining their call-up letters in the usual old way. But it has issued a note of warning that starting from 2015, all call-up letters would have to be obtained online, which would be made available and accessible to corpers at the rate of N4000.
“However, those who wish to collect their call-up letters from their institutions need not pay the N4000 after the online registration. Meanwhile, members of the public should know that with effect from 2015 Batch “A,” all prospective corps members have to print their call-up letters online,” the management of the scheme said with an air of finality and authority in the advert.
However, it is believed that if allowed, not only does such a trend not portend well for the entire NYSC scheme, which, as already established, has been fishing in stormy waters in recent times, it is an indication of challenges Nigerian youths are always made to go through which seem endless.
It’s been four decades since the NYSC scheme was established by the administration of the ex-military Head of State, Yakubu Gowon.
According to information obtained from the NYSC website, the scheme was created in a bid to “reconstruct, reconcile and rebuild the country after the Nigerian Civil war.
“The unfortunate antecedents in our national history gave impetus to the establishment of the National Youth Service Corps by Decree No.24 of 22nd May 1973 which stated that the NYSC is being established with a view to the proper encouragement and development of common ties among the youth of Nigeria and the promotion of national unity,” a report on the website says.
In its 41 years of existence, the mandatory, one year-long youth integration programme has shown its own fair share of criticisms, commendations, condemnations, and quite recently, calls in certain quarters for its abrogation. Such calls were largely made by those who deem the scheme to have long overstayed its welcome.
While some see the NYSC scheme which wants youths to “obey the clarion call ...... under the sun or in the rain...” to have greatly achieved its mandate of re-uniting a nation that was torn apart and threatened with disintegration by a three-year old civil war, others are of the opinion that NYSC has in recent times bred more ‘pains than gains’ with a number of negative trends that have come to be associated with the scheme. Chief among such negative trends is the killings of corps members serving in a section of the country in various sectarian, political, and religious crises.
Other negative trends which seem to be counting against the scheme include alleged ‘politicilisation’ of the entire programme; while some affluent and influential individuals in the country have also been accused of championing the continuation of the scheme for self aggrandisement. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the contract for the production of the kits worn by serving youth corps members during their one-year programme was at a time awarded to the wife of an ex-military head of state.
But the most recent negative trend which the scheme seems to be currently following and which has been described as ‘scandal’ in some quarters, is the commercialisation of the NYSC programme as announced by the management of the scheme.
According to critics and public analysts, one of the problems of this whole new trend is that it amounts to commercialisation of the entire NYSC programme, which was originally set up never to be a money-making venture, and this has been the case until now.
Thus, this new development, analysts believe, has the potential of further smudging the image of the Federal Government which was negatively affected when a recruitment exercise being conducted by the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) suddenly went awry in parts of the country, leaving deaths and bodily injuries in its wake. The entire NIS recruitment exercise, it will be recalled, was later found to have largely turned into a money spinning venture for the government and NIS after forms were sold for thousands of naira to desperate young men and women who were ready to part with the little they had in order to get a source of livelihood for themselves.
Similar commercialisation efforts had been reported in other governments ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) including the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), where employment forms had been allegedly sold for as much as N1500 in the past.
Now with the N4000 to be paid for call-up letters, a move, which as earlier indicated, would become compulsory for all would-be corpers starting from next year’s Batch “A”, which is expected to kick-off next March, a new avenue for money to be spun out of hapless youths might as well been created.
A quick research conducted by Saturday Tribune which went to work as soon as the management of NYSC went public with its intention to introduce the new ‘money-for-call-up letters’ idea, indicates that for each batch of corps members, not less than N1 billion will be get into the coffers of NYSC.
It’s been estimated that an average of 100,000 corps members serve their fatherland each year, and at the rate of N4000 per call-up letter, it means NYSC would be realising over N400m every year from call-up letters alone.
If allowed to see the light of the day, it remains unclear what the management of NYSC hopes to achieve with this money and what structure it has put in place to account for every penny when the need arises. This is worth noting, especially since the entire programme enjoys full financial backing from the Federal Government which has been solely responsible for the running of the scheme since it came into existence in 1973.
It is a well-known fact that it is the government’s funds that take care of the feeding of corpers, while all the kits corps members are provided in camp, and most importantly corpers’ allowee (a general parlance for the monthly stipends which corps members are paid) are also taken care of by the government. The government funds also see to the welfare of military, paramilitary as well as NYSC officers at the camp, while the entire maintenance of each orientation camp is also provided for by the government. All these, as already said, raise the question of what the management of NYSC hopes to achieve with the money it makes from this latest plan.
When giving his disapproval of the new move, former president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Mr Peter Esele, in a chat with Saturday Tribune, called the entire development “ridiculous” and “fraudulent,” saying it was an indication that some people somewhere were bent on milking money from hapless graduates trying to take the next big step in their lives.
“It is ridiculous and fraudulent asking corps members who have just struggled to finish their undergraduate studies and who have been mandated to serve their fatherland to pay any amount of money. It is not different from asking them to pay to mandatorily serve their nation. I am certain somebody somewhere is behind this, and it is sad that to see people wanting to take advantage of the entire situation in the country to make money off youths. It was this kind of story that came up at the NIS some months back and which led to the deaths of young men and women who were merely seeking employment,” said Esele.
Seeing the government as the only entity that could bring an end to what he deemed an anomaly, the ex-TUC president urged the government to nip the move in the bud even before it could any daylight.
“I want to appeal to the Federal Government to ask NYSC to stop this immediately before things get out of control,” he added.
Similarly, a Lagos-based legal practitioner, Mr Akintunde Ishola, questioned the legality of the move by the management of NYSC, insisting there was a law supporting the existence of the scheme, and that any improvement or addition to the way the scheme was being run ought to follow an established due process.
But he doubted if the management of NYSC had followed such a process.
“The legality of such massive pronouncements coming from the management of NYSC must be questioned. We didn’t hear of any public hearing on this, neither was the public carried along when this was to be done, only for us to be told of the management’s intentions on the pages of newspapers. The NYSC scheme enjoys the backing of the law, and as such, whatever changes that must be effected on it must be backed up by the law,” Mr Ishola posited.
In his own remarks, the immediate past chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja branch, Monday Ubani, questioned the rationale behind the announcement, insisting that such a move was not only insensitive on the part of the management of NYSC, it was also oppressive and vindictive, given the fact that the youth in question were fresh graduates just leaving the various higher institutions of learning, and as such, did not have any source of income.
‘It is purely illegal and is synonymous to an act of extortion. it is sad, but this trend is fast becoming a norm among all government agencies, as they all try to make money from those who they are supposed to provide certain services for,” Ubani argued.
Like the ex-TUC president, Mr Ubani also made reference to the NIS fatal recruitment exercise, which he said showed that the government’s attitude to important national issues needed a total and drastic change.
“It is fast becoming a normal trend for government agencies to use any means necessary to make money off employment seekers. The recent immigration saga which brought deaths to many homes brought this unwholesome trend to bear. Now it is NYSC that is toeing the same path. But this is illegal and oppressive. It is illegal because under what law and policy the managemet of NYSC hope to achieve this; and it is oppressive because we are talking about people who just graduated from various schools across the country and as such, have no income and no means of livelihood. If these people are just leaving their various schools, then why should they be made to pay before they can have their call-up letters to serve their fatherland?” he asked.
The legal practitioner also called on the Federal Government, through the Minister of Education and other relevant ministers, to, as a matter of urgency, call the management of NYSC to order by ordering an immediate end of the move.
Saturday Tribune also put the same poser to two intending corps members in separate interviews, and like those interviewed before them, they also expressed the notion that the plan was not in the best interest of Nigerian youths.
Segun Olaitan hopes to join the next batch of corpers in November, and when approached by Saturday Tribune, he did show that he was really looking forward to the exercise. But according to him, the N4000 proposed by the management of the scheme is uncalled for because there is no indication yet that the government which initiated and funds the entire NYSC scheme can no longer do this.
“Is the government tired of funding the scheme and has therefore directed the management of NYSC to find ways of raising money to fund the national programme? If no, then why is NYSC trying to start the process of fund generation? What would the money raised be used for? These are some of the questions that the management of NYSC needs to answer. We really need to know why NYSC has chosen this path,” Olaitan said.
Another prospective corps member, Miss Chioma Umezie, who hopes to be enrolled on the scheme as a member of the Batch “A” which kicks-off in March, next year, remarked that the move by the NYSC management to make online printing of call-up letters possible was laudable, as it would save corpers a measure of stress of having to travel to their various schools where they would be expected to spend hours before being given their letters.
She, however, observed that asking people to pay as much as N4000 to enjoy such benefits was not a good idea. “Of course, if we are mandated to pay the money, we will be left with no choice but to pay it, but the fact remains that it is not the right way to treat people who are being compelled to serve their fatherland,” she added.
Credit: Vangurd
